Zhiyun Smooth XS Gimbal Stabilizer for Smartphone, Handheld Selfie Stick Gimbal Tripod for iPhone Android with 26cm Extensional Stick, Slide Design, w/Case, Vlog YouTube Live Video Record, White

The Zhiyun Smooth XS Handheld Gimbal Stabilizer is very small and light though a bit plasticky compared to a lot of other gimbals. A short USB-C cable is included for charging, but alas, a charging brick was not included. Oh well, most people would have a few of those laying around anyway, so it is not really that big a deal as far as I’m concerned. The included tripod stand, wrist strap, and soft carrying bag comes in very handy. It was a very good thing they included the tripod stand because the gimbal grip was quite small. The folded-up attached tripod gave me more room to handle it comfortably.Being a two-axis gimbal, it can only pan and roll, no tilt. Not really that big a deal, I just tilt it manually. Not as smooth but it will do. The built-in extension rod helps with its manual tilting bracket. Some privacy oriented users might get a little put off by the mandatory registration in its companion app called ZY Cami.It takes about 3 hours to fully charge from empty and lasts around four hours or so of use. I usually carry a power bank with me anyway. Just in case I need to use it longer than that. It was very easy to carry around and had it inside my short pocket when not in use. Black would have been my preferred color but I could only order it from Amazon in white.To be perfectly honest, this is a good gimbal. It's not great, but really, what would you expect for the price? It is definitely worth every penny.

The media could not be loaded.  For those of you who like to take and upload videos or make social content, this might be the thing that fills that need.The Smooth-XS will allow you to take selfies or record events around you. It has a gimbal that will keep your smartphone level in both portrait and landscape modes. Once set it will also track an object by rotating the gimbal keeping the object within view. (Note: it will only swivel 290 degrees so if objects go past that, it will stop.) Using hand jesters you can start and stop recording remotely while it sits on its tripod.It comes with the following; main unit, tripod, USB C charging cord, carrying bag, strap (a nice touch,) must-read docs, quick start guide, disclaimer,and warning doc, and service card. I thought the printing on the service card is terrible. The fonts are so small you can’t read it. The card needs to be at least twice the size and maybe make it a fold-out. There isn’t a full manual that comes with the unit. You must download using a “Q” code reader on your phone. To me, it doesn’t make sense to download the manual to the phone when you have to use the phone to run the unit. I ended up downloading it to my phone and then moving to my computer.When it’s collapsed to fit into a pocket it’s 7.25.” Unfolded it’s about 10.25”. With it fully extended it’s about 21”. When you extend the selfie stick it’s stiff but that’s what you want; you don’t want it collapsing when it’s in use. Sitting on the tripod it’s about 12.6”. The jaws will open up enough to hold my Pixel 3A with a phone case. Fully open the jaws will reach about 3.25”.One of the first things you have to do is download the app and charge the unit. The app is needed to use the unit in its full capability. Using the thumb joystick (stabilizer joystick) you can tilt the phone either 28 degrees either CC or CCW from horizontal and rotate the camera about 270 degrees (see the video.)Without using the app but the unit to the phone via Bluetooth, you can tilt and rotate the camera, switch from landscape to portrait mode. You can also use the unit to take pictures. There are three modes for the unit; pan follow, roll and pan follow, or lock mode. This will let you lock into position, much like lesser costing selfie sticks, or pan follow which will keep the phone facing the same direction as you move. There is also a slide switch that will let you zoom in and out.The app has a ton of features. One in particular is the ability to track an object. Once you identify the object it will rotate following that object. Note: it will not tilt up and down, only side to side. Other features include live streaming, panoramic, time-lapse, hyper-lapse, and the ability to edit within the phone. If you want to use these features expect to spend some time learning with the unit and app.Other than the service card and no manual (see above) this is a very good unit. It’s small enough to put in a purse or back pocket. There are enough features that will keep the vast majority of folks happy. And the price point is pretty darn good. I don’t think you are going to get anything better for the price and capabilities.

I have been doing a fair bit of social media content and video production, and I needed something that was lightweight and capable of acting as both a tripod stand and a gimbal that I could carry around with me. I wasn't expecting the extra bonus of a selfie stick that lets the tripod sit higher, as well as act as a much better version of my current selfie stick!This is AWESOME! It performs all of the functions I needed and more!It's compact and lightweight, works great with my iPhone 11 Pro Max. I love the nice little bag to keep everything clean in my bag or pocket. It feels surprisingly solid and well built for being made of mostly plastic, which keeps the weight down, if this was metal it would way a ton. I love orange, grey, and white. Looks cool, feels good in my hand, very ergonomic.My first week of use has been great! I may end up buying more of their products.The smooth 4 looks fantastic too, I may get one of those as well so I can have a 3 axis gimbal for certain shoots where I need up and down camera movement (which is rare, but sometimes important for dynamic music videos, etc).For a social influencer that needs something they can keep in their pocket and record some great videos with really quickly, you have found your product! It also makes for awesome video chats as well.I love their little video templates in their app. You can pick a video template, and it will guide you through the shots you need to take and perform automated camera moves. You take the shots one by one as the app guides you, with a nice little reference shot showing you what it is going to do. I did a test video of my cat using their template of the dog, and it looks awesome like I spent hours shooting and editing, but it took me about 2 minutes to shoot and automatically edited it for me!To top it all off, they have some really cool little features in their camera app, it can beautify your face, with filters to clean up your skin texture, slenderize your cheeks/chin, make your eyes larger and brighter. It can do great time-lapse, and slow-motion shots, though I am still not sure if I know what the difference is between hyper-lapse and time-lapse modes. You can enable a feature to trigger it to record by making hand gestures, like a peace sign. There are a ton of built-in tutorial videos, but some of them are currently in Mandarin, I brought this up to them and they sent me a link to a video on youtube that was in English and said they would look into resolving it in the app.Their support has been utterly phenomenal, I messaged them through their website/Facebook chat and they got back to me immediately and were helpful beyond any support I have ever gotten from any company.Amazing work Zhiyun! Consider me a fan, if you have a stock on the NYSE I would be buying some shares right now :P